Anchor shifts focus to the podcasting community with 'Anchor 3.0'

Earlier this week, Anchor rolled out Anchor 3.0, a re-launch of its app and focus. The broadcasting app was once a social audio platform for people to share bits of audio with each other. However, thanks to the re-emergence of long-form audio and the rise of podcasting, the app shifted its focus to serving the ever-growing podcasting community.

Anchor 3.0 brings a re-imaged mobile app and a new web dashboard equipped with new features that make podcasting easier and faster than ever. The redesigned mobile app also offers a wide range of distribution options and free hosting services.

The Re-Imaged Mobile App

The re-imaged mobile app allows you and up to 10 of your friends to record a podcast directly from the convenience of your phones. In addition to your own audio, you can include songs from Apple Music or Spotify, add different transitions, and broadcast voice messages from your listeners. The mobile app also features direct, private converstations that can be added to a podcast episode, giving you another way to get content.

There is also an episode management feature where you can rearrange segments in your episodes and build new episodes from new or previous content.

Photo: Anchor

The New Web Dashboard

With the new web dashboard, you can make or manage your podcast directly from your computer with various web tools that are easy to use, even if you're new to podcasting. Some of these tools include the ability to upload existing audio, to create new episodes using audio from your Anchor history, or to view analytics such as plays per episode, total plays, downloads, and more.

Photo: Anchor

The web dashboard also gives you the ability to customize a landing page for your podcast, giving you the option to share your podcast with people using a clean, custom URL. The landing page consists of your podcast information, all of your podcast episodes, and links that allow people to listen to your podcast on other platforms.

Distribution & 100% Free Unlimited Podcast Hosting

Anchor makes it very easy to distribute your podcast. With the tap of a button, you can share episodes across all of the major podcasting apps such as Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Google Play, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, and Spotify.

One of its most appealing features is that it offers 100% free unlimited podcast hosting. You likely won't go broke podcasting, but depending on the length of episodes and the freqeuency that you put them out, it can be quite expensive to host a podcast. But with Anchor offering unlimited podcast hosting, you don't need to worry about that at all.

Photo: Anchor

By shifting its focus to being a tool for podcast creation rather than a social audio platform, Anchor is taking full advantage of podcasts being a popular content format today.

Anchor 3.0 will likely bring even more people to the world of podcasting. Due to the combination of quality software, tools, and services that Anchor offers, people that weren't able to create podcasts can do so now. In fact, they can start a podcast as soon as today. I, myself, have thought about getting back into podcasting after not having one for the past year and a half. It's looking like Anchor may be the way to go.

It will be interesting to see how long Anchor's 100% free model will last for creators. You have to think at some point, they will have to start charging for the tool or hosting services or at least requiring advertisments to run ahead of podcasts.